Page:Reminiscences of Earliest Canterbury 1915.pdf/90

 it is gone, what will supply wood for, say, our butter boxes?

Another matter of great importance is connected with the cutting of the trees. It seems to me that legislation should be passed prohibiting the felling of trees at any time save during the winter when the sap is down. I have had much practical experience with native timber. For example, the posts and rails for the first fence erected in Pigeon Bay in 1848, were cut in July. At the present day, sixty-four years afterwards, many of the posts are as sound as on the day they were put in, because they were cut when the sap was down.

When the forest is destroyed by fire, a sound tree will not burn, but should such a tree be killed when the sap is up, and the timber from it used for fencing, it will be found that in a few years dry rot shows just at the surface of the ground.

Now, were the Government to insist that the trees felled for railway sleepers should only be felled during May, June, and July, there would be a saving of several thousands of pounds annually to the country. We split all our totara for fencing from the green bush during the winter months. The posts